Jfr ‘Stangs Stampede 1-2-3

Clermont, Ind. — If the John Force Racing Ford Mustangs weren’t perfection Friday at O’Reilly Raceway Park, they were a reasonable facsimile of same.

On the first day of qualifying for the 56th annual Mac Tools U.S. Nationals, drag racing’s oldest, largest, richest and most prestigious event, the naked eye could not have differentiated between the three 8,000 horsepower Mustangs driven by reigning Full Throttle Champion Robert Top Gun Hight, 14-time champion John Force and defending event champion Ashley Force Hood.

Nevertheless, with the aid of electronic timing, Hight got both the provisional No. 1 spot and a track record at the wheel of a special edition Auto Club Ford Mustang commemorating his 2009 championship season.

Hight stopped the 1,000 foot timers in 4.055 seconds at 310.98 miles per hour to get the provisional No. 1, eclipsing the 4.073 previously recorded by Tony Pedregon. Force, a four-time Indy winner, was caught in 4.058 seconds at a track record speed of 312.86 mph in his Castrol GTX High Mileage Mustang and his daughter, Force Hood, in 4.059 seconds at a speed identical to Hight’s in the Castrol GTX Ford.

A U.S. Nationals finalist in each of the last four seasons and winner in 2006 and 2008, Hight took the first step toward securing a second straight No. 1 start at Indy with a near flawless run in a Jimmy Prock-prepared car widely-regarded as the most powerful in the category.

Hight’s heroics came just 14 days after he celebrated his 41st birthday and less than a week after he was clocked at 4.09 seconds in testing at ORP. He, his teammates and everyone else in the field will have four more opportunities to improve performance and position the next two days.

Source: http://www.fordracing.com/news/detail/index.asp?article=38305

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Jfr ‘Stangs Stampede 1-2-3

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